These Quiet Days
by deebainwonderland
Summary: The Straw Hat Pirate crew spends a week thinking their captain is gone forever. It goes about as well as one would expect. That is to say, very, very poorly. Angst with a happy ending.


**These Quiet Days**

Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with One Piece

Warnings: angst, minor language

Summary: The Straw Hat Pirate crew spends a week thinking their captain is gone forever. It goes about as well as one would expect. That is to say, very, very poorly. Angst with a happy ending.

The Thousand Sunny was deathly quiet. For a ship that was normally full of laughter and energy, the silence seeped into every corner and the waves crashed against the sides with gusto, as if trying to drown it out.

Its captain was dead.

X

Usopp was the one who found the paper, which had been swept up onto the deck by the wind. He had picked it up without really thinking about it, barely glancing down at the front page. His scream brought the rest of the crew running.

The headline was grotesque.

 _Straw Hat Luffy Joins His Brother_.

The picture underneath the headline showed their captain's body laid out on the ground. There hadn't been any blood, which was odd, but Luffy's eyes had been open, staring glassily out at the camera. They were unseeing.

Usopp hadn't spoken since then. It had been nearly seven days and the whole time his mouth had remained shut tight. It wasn't like he hadn't tried to talk, he had, but every time he attempted it the words seemed to turn to sand in his mouth.

It was odd, but Usopp couldn't stop thinking about the time he had left the crew. Betrayed his crew. Betrayed his captain. Now Luffy was gone and Usopp knew he never really made up for it. How could he have ever make up for leaving the boy who had given him his freedom?

So, really, what was there left to say?

X

Nami had spoken since they learned the news. In fact she barely stopped talking. She made the rounds of the crew, trying to get them all to cheer up. She talked about how just because their captain was gone didn't mean his dream was. They were still a crew and they had to stick together. They could still travel the Grand Line and achieve their dreams.

She didn't believe a word of it.

So what if she was able to create a map of the entire world? Nami had wanted to see it with him. The crew all had their own reasons for being there but somehow they all melded with the very life of their captain.

Now, Nami wasn't sure there was anything left.

X

Chopper blamed himself. Of course, they all blamed themselves, but for Chopper the wound was especially deep. He was the damn doctor, and he hadn't even had the chance to save his captain. The very purpose of him being on this crew was to heal them when they were injured. And yet he had learned of Luffy's death from a newspaper, miles away and able to do nothing at all.

Chopper had stopped thinking of himself as a monster a long time ago. Not long after a loud and obnoxious boy in a straw hat had stated, under no uncertain circumstances, that Chopper was his doctor. It hadn't taken Chopper long to believe him.

Now he wasn't so sure.

X

Robin's response to the death of their captain had surprised even her. She was the voice of reason on the ship, the calm one who always had a second plan on hand.

So when she had fallen to her knees in front of the newspaper and burst in heart-wrenching, uncontrollable tears, everyone had been frozen in shock. Nami had knelt at her side and placed a hand on her back but Robin shoved it aside and fled into her room.

She had stayed there since. The darkness in her heart had been chased away by a boy with a sunny smile and infectious laugh but now it was back and she simply didn't have the strength to fight it.

Her tears had eventually dried up. Robin thought ideally that really, a person could only make so many tears.

Robin lay unmoving in her bed, unable to bear the sight of sunlight.

X

Sanji had cried as well. He cried as he had moved back to the kitchen to make dinner after the news. His tears had fallen into the food. He cried as he carried the food around to his crew, scattered throughout the Thousand Sunny. He cried when they all, one after another, refused to eat.

Over the next few days, Sanji jumped every time he heard any little noise while he was in the kitchen. He kept expecting Luffy to come bounding through the door, demanding to be fed. This had used to annoy Sanji to no end.

Now, however, Sanji thought he would give just about anything to hear that demand, even just once more. Sanji had never really believed in any kind of higher power but now he found himself spending a lot of time begging, to anyone who could hear him, that if his captain would just come back, he would never, never, deny him anything again.

The meat he cooked every day lay on the table, untouched and wasted.

X

Brook seemed to have lost the song in his soul. He didn't have a heart anymore, but he had always been fairly certain that he had a soul. Luffy always seemed to think so anyway.

It was so strange. It wasn't like this was the first person that he had lost. Far from it, actually. So why did this one seem so different?

Brook tried to play music for his grief-stricken crewmates in the first few days after it happened, but everything he played sounded like a funeral tune.

The joy was gone. Brook supposed that he really could only lose so much before that was lost too.

X

Franky didn't seem to be working right. Every gear and plug itched and not matter what he did, nothing seemed to help. He wondered if it was always going to feel like this.

Throwing himself into the Thousand Sunny seemed like the only thing to do. It was the ship that he built for Luffy and now it was the only part of him that they had left. Franky wasn't sure if the crew was going to survive this, but not matter what happened, he swore that he would never leave the ship.

The Thousand Sunny was the vessel that the man who would have been King of the Pirates sailed upon and Franky would make damn sure it stayed fit for a king.

X

Zoro had left the ship the day after. No one had asked him where he was going. They all knew. Their captain's body belonged back with them.

He had searched for nearly a week. Ever since Usopp had discovered the damn newspaper a haze had formed in Zoro's mind. He had to focus on breathing. His mind kept returning to the day Luffy had left, waving and laughing, saying he had a little something that he had to do alone but he would be back by morning. And would Sanji please have huge breakfast waiting for him?

But he had never come back. And worse than that, Zoro hadn't come after him. The newspaper had been sketchy on the details and as of yet, they didn't know who was responsible for the death of their captain. That would come later. Zoro would not rest until every single one of those involved were put in the ground. And it would be slow.

Zoro was not a merciless man by nature. Well, maybe he had been but Luffy had changed all that. Luffy changed everything.

He had given Zoro purpose, a family and a home. Now it was all gone.

It was nearly a week before Zoro had returned to the ship empty handed. Usopp and Nami had looked up at him when he had arrived but he had simply shaken his head. It seemed that they wouldn't even get the chance to bury their captain.

The others had looked away and Zoro didn't blame them. He doubted he would ever be able to look into a mirror again.

XXX

Luffy was having a very bad week. He had left his ship and crew seven days earlier because it was about the time of year that he had lost Sabo and it was the only time when he craved to be alone. His nakama had seemed to understand this and had let him go. Things had gone a bit downhill from there.

It really had been rotten luck. He ran into that marine in the little town on the coast of the island and had been recognized. Luffy barely had time to react before he'd been hit in the face with some kind of weird purple smoke. He'd managed to send the marine flying before he had fallen over unconscious.

Luffy had awoken days later in the care on a kindly old woman who had dragged him off the street. Her name was Miriam and she had explained that particular marine often swaggered into their little village boasting about his sleep-sleep powers that could put any opponent into a death-like sleep for weeks. Miriam had been surprised that he had woken up so quickly.

Bounding up to his feet Luffy exclaimed, "It takes more than that to keep the future King of the Pirates down!" He then proceeded to promptly fall to his knees in terrible desperate hunger.

"That was some good grub!" he said happily some time later as he moved through the forest, making his way back to his ship. It had been six days more than what he had told his crew but there wasn't a single doubt in his mind that they would still be there waiting for him.

It wasn't long before the Thousand Sunny came into view. "There it is!"

Gripping one hand each on two sturdy trees, Luffy stretched himself back as far as he could go. "Gum…Gum…Rocket!" He left fly, laughing as he soared towards his ship and this beloved crewmates.

He hit the sail directly on the face of the grinning skull and fell laughing to the deck in a heap. Luffy sat up, detangling his limbs and looked around.

Usopp, Nami, Zoro and Sanji were on the deck, staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"Hey guys!" Luffy cried, leaping to his feet, "Sorry I'm late!"

Then, seeing their stricken expressions, Luffy's brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"

XXX

That night, the whole crew sat gathered around a bonfire on the beach next to the Thousand Sunny. Luffy had explained everything that had happened to him and Nami had shown him the newspaper article.

The picture had surprised Luffy. "Someone must have snapped that before old lady Miriam dragged me off to her house," he said, studying the picture with minor interest, "Wow, I really do look dead!"

Nami had turned away at that, hiding her face from her captain. Luffy had looked over confused at Zoro, but he too had turned away.

Luffy was perplexed. He has expected his crew to be happy when he had shown up after a week away and though they had all hugged him at his arrival, they seemed too shocked to actually comprehend that he was back. That Luffy was alive.

Even now, they glanced nervously at each other, like they all thought this was just a dream but none of them dared to wake each other up.

Looking at them all now, around the fire, Luffy thought back to the day that he had known, without any doubt, that Ace was dead. His heart clenched.

"Hey," he said uncertainty, and all eyes snapped to him hungrily. Luffy spread his arms out wide and couldn't help the grin that sprung to his face. "I'm alright. We're ok."

Apparently Luffy saying it himself was all they needed.

With identical cries, Nami, Usopp and Chopper threw themselves at their captain, latching on to him and bursting into tears.

Sanji brought a cigarette up to his lips with shaking hands. It was the first one he had smoked all week.

Robin smiled to herself and didn't feel at all like crying.

Brook leapt to his feet and a joyous tune erupted from his violin as Franky danced around him.

Zoro stood silently, hand gripping his swords as he moved to stand at Luffy' back, looming above the others and looking up at the sky.

The laughter of Straw Hat Luffy shattered the silence.

 **Hope you enjoyed this little story. Please review, I love hearing from readers. I might write a sequel about the days after this story as Luffy and his crew re-adjust if there is interest.**

 **~deeba**


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